New Jersey, California officials like the Real ID Act

So I spent part of this week at the RSA conference in San Francisco, 
where I stopped by a panel that seemed to be created by and intended for 
state DMV officials. The topic was the Real ID Act, and everyone seemed 
to either like it a lot or be entirely in love with the scheme. All were 
former or current government officials, and not one said it was a bad idea.

In fact, California and (especially) New Jersey loved it:
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6157813.html

One idea they had was for the feds to mandate biometrics (fingerprint, 
retinal scan, DNA sample) on these federalized ID cards. Right now DHS 
can but isn't required to do so; we're still waiting for the regulations 
to be made public.

Another idea came from Paula Arcioni, the chief information security 
officer for New Jersey's Office of Information Technology, and a member 
of the National Electronic Commerce Coordinating Council:
http://www.ec3.org/About/AboutBoard.htm

Clearly electronic commerce could never happen unless it were properly 
"coordinated" by some state governments.

Anyway, Arcioni not only applauded the law but said it would be made 
much better if it was turned into a microprocessor-enabled smartcard 
that both state governments and corporations could use for online 
authentication.

Compare this to what Maine did a few weeks ago:
http://www.politechbot.com/2007/01/25/maine-becomes-first/

Guess these states either haven't gotten the message yet, or perhaps 
these midlevel bureaucrats are simply so caught up in their own fiefdoms 
that they ignore what the public actually wants.

-Declan
Posted by Declan McCullagh on Feb 09, 2007 in category privacy